Sugar in a Bowl
by Eliot Rosewater
Summary: Natasha checked up on Bucky after he got back from a mission with Sam in Minsk.


**Note: ****This is a re-post of a story that was originally published 06 January 2017**

* * *

"This is mobile four hailing all channels for Agent Romanoff."

Natasha opened her eyes and let her head fall forward off the headrest. The Atlantic Ocean was a navy blur below her, the sky inky but not black above the nose of her jet. Slowly, she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in the pilot's seat. Depressing a button on the cockpit's panel, she said, "This is Agent Romanoff."

As expected, there was a pause. "Natasha?"

She sat back again. Put her bare feet up on the panel so she could depress the button with her toe as needed. "What's up, Maria?"

"You're on your way in?"

"ETA seven hours."

"I have a request here for your services."

A smirk tickled her face. "So soon?" she said.

"You're very popular."

"Let's hear it."

"Transmission came in from Paris."

Natasha hummed and said, "What's Steve want?" There was only one thing he ever asked for these days.

A sound much like laughter leaked across the connection. "Wilson and Barnes got in from their assignment in Minsk yesterday. Wilson is under observation on base. Barnes went home, and no one's heard from him since debriefing. Steve is—"

"Steve is Steve, as always," Natasha cut in. "I'll check up on Barnes when I get in." Belatedly, she thought to tell Maria to give her best to Wilson and his recovery from whatever had happened to him. But she'd already ended the transmission.

Tapping a few different buttons and adjusting a few dials on the panel before pretzeling her legs beneath her, Natasha let her eyes close and her head fall back. "The Blue Danube" carried her to shore.

* * *

No one answered when Natasha knocked on his apartment door a few hours later. Well, she could hear Bucky's dog's nails on the hardwood as it raced to the door, but that didn't count. The nose poked at the crack at the bottom of the door and snorted. Natasha smiled to herself.

"I know you're in there, and I'm coming in whether you like it or not," she said.

Nothing but the excited tamp of paws answered.

Natasha shifted the bags she'd brought with to one hand and jimmied the door this way and that until his locks disengaged. Bucky Barnes wasn't a big believer in conventional deadbolts. Go figure. The dog jumped as soon as Natasha swung the door open.

"Hey, Mission," she said to the dog and patted her head.

Mission followed Natasha into the kitchen with her tail wagging all the while. The place was dark except for the glow of the television from the other room. Natasha put her bags on the counter and took her time putting things in the kitchen cabinets (understandably bare considering that he'd been away on assignment) and the refrigerator (just as bare as the cabinets except for beer). When she was done, she turned and asked the dog, "Has he fed you lately?"

Mission's ears perked as they always did when words related to eating were mentioned. Her tail made a little swishing sound against the floor.

"Show me," Natasha said.

Mission turned and trotted off. Natasha followed her into the next room. Into the glow of the muted television. The dog jumped up on the couch next to her owner. Bucky was lying on his side in the centre of his curved sofa, and his eyes blinked open as the dog stepped on him in her excitement.

"Hey," Natasha said. She flopped down and stretched her legs out on the cushions. She poked his calf with her toe. Mission came over, her whole butt was shaking with the force of her tail. Natasha dodged the dog's happy tongue as Bucky pushed himself into a sitting position.

"Hey," he said.

"You feed her?"

Nod. The dog left Natasha and got up in Bucky's face with that tongue after he was fully upright. "Mission, _nyet_," he said. Gently pushed her away from his face. She sat and swung her giant paws at his chest until he gave her proper attention.

Natasha took the opportunity to look the apartment over. Junk all over the table. Clothes and the stuffing from dog toys all over the floor. All the pictures on the walls (the reminders he and Steve had painstakingly made) were crooked, a few knocked to the floor. The frame of one was cracked. Mission's bed was halfway across the room from the place where it usually was.

_Bad form, Barnes._

"Sorry," Bucky said vaguely. Like he'd just washed up on the shore, gritty with the sand of a beach he hadn't been to before.

Shrugging, she said, "Saw a recipe for fried cheese curds on-line. Mind if I stink up the place using your fryer?"

He shook his head.

Natasha messed with the hairs at the end of Mission's tail. "Has she been out recently?"

Bucky looked at his lap and didn't say anything, sinking again.

"Want me to take her around the block?" Natasha asked pointedly.

"I'll take her," he said woodenly. The dog jumped off the couch with much excitement when he pushed himself to his feet—maybe for the first time all day.

"Remember to put a shirt on," she said lightly. "It's cold out there."

Bucky snorted. Maybe it was meant to convey amusement, but it just sounded tired. He scooped a lump of grey clothing off the floor and pulled it over his head.

"You can take it off again when you get back. I won't mind."

Another sort of-snort. "Tasha," he said quietly. "Only if you do, too."

She hummed in consideration at the offer. Finally succeeded in getting a genuine grin out of him.

"Mission, come to me," he said in Russian from the door.

The dog went happily. She sat without him telling her to. He fixed the leash to her collar.

"I'll be right back," he said.

"Yep," she said.

The door closed and their feet tapped on the stairs outside. Seamlessly, she pulled out her phone and sent the message to Steve and Maria that she'd typed out on the way over telling them that Bucky was fine. Natasha got up and cleared all the empty beer bottles from the coffee table. Flicked the switch so that the ceiling fan started the whirl. The scent of stale super soldier wasn't that great. In the kitchen, she poured vegetable oil into a pot and let it heat up. In a bowl, she prepared the breading per the recipe she'd seen on-line. Ever since that mission to Wisconsin when she was just a spiderling, Natasha had had a fondness for cheese curds. There wasn't a good reason why—food seldom had a good reason why.

Bucky came back with the dog while Natasha was dropping the second batch of curds into the oil. He topped off Mission's bowl of water before the dog proceeded to drink and splash it all over the floor.

"She really had to go," Bucky mumbled. He leaned against the counter and watched Natasha poked the curds around in the pot.

"Imagine that," Natasha said, throwing him a sidelong smirk through her hair.

He had the grace to look chastised. "Won't happen again."

"Take a shower," she said. "You stink."

"Yes, ma'am." And he was gone again.

When the water stopped running in the bathroom and he returned, Natasha was in the same curve of the couch that she'd found Bucky in. The lights were all off, so only the glowing television lit the room. Overhead, the fan continued to whirl. There was a basket of fried cheese curds on the coffee table and two beers. One was opened, one wasn't.

Bucky laid down beside her without waiting for an invitation, but he grabbed the unopened beer first. A flick of his metal hand popped the cap off.

"No wonder everyone calls it your can opener," she said while shifting so that they filled each other's hollow places. Her nose filled with the scent of his soap, and his skin was warm, just barely damp from the heat and water.

_Much better._

After a swallow, he said, "It's 'cause Steve's sense of humour never left the forties."

Wedged between the back of the couch and Bucky's side, Natasha pointed at the cheese curds. He took the basket off the coffee table and handed it off to her. His stomach was just as good as the table, so Natasha balanced the basket there and ate one.

"Tell me if they're any good," she said.

"Why am I always your test kitchen?" But he took one anyway.

"Because you don't hesitate to tell me when it's bad."

"They're good," he said.

"Hm."

"Really." He ate another one.

"Have you had them before?"

He nodded. Drink of beer. "Fort McCoy."

Her eyebrows arched.

"They've been around a long time. Wisconsin has always been full of cheese, even in the forties. _Especially_ in the forties." Two more. "I mean, those ones were damn near fresh out the udder"—_gross_—"but these aren't half bad."

They watched the television, ate, and drank; the volume on the television was low instead of muted now. She could feel Bucky sink into himself by inches. For now, she let him. No point in trying to shake him out of it. It was better this way; she knew from experience with herself and with him. Just let it happen.

Mission whined at them. Natasha took pity on the dog and tossed her a cheese curd.

"I wasn't lying when I said I've been feeding her," Bucky said.

"Yeah, but she looked at me with those eyes."

"You sound like Steve."

She was on her second beer and he was on his third. A throw blanket was warm over their bodies.

"Do you even like the taste of beer?" she said.

His chest vibrated under her cheek while he hummed.

"You must. The alcohol doesn't do anything for you, so why else?"

Bucky said, "If I drink hard and fast, I feel it."

"How'd you figure _that_ out?"

"Thor and tequila."

She poked his side. He hummed again.

"I like what the taste reminds me of."

"And what does the taste of beer remind you of?"

Another hum. "Brooklyn in summer." A sigh. She could feel the little bit of hope tickle inside his chest. "The Commandos."

That made her smile and wiggle closer. On the screen, a sea turtle had just broken its shell and had thoughts of waves.

Then:

"How's, uh, Wilson?" Bucky asked.

Natasha made sure she kept her eyes on the television and her voice level. It was easy. "Good," she said. "Ready to get out of there."

"Um, uh. That's good."

She hummed and adjusted the way her head rested on his chest.

"Did you get a chance to talk to him or…?"

"No. Hill told me all the tests came back fine. As soon as the observation window expires, he'll be free to go."

Some silence.

She said, "It wasn't your fault. These things happen in our line of work; you know that."

"Yeah," he said in a tone of voice that meant he acknowledged the logic but didn't agree with the statement.

"James."

"Hm?"

"Get out of your head."

"I know."

"Don't make me call Steve."

"He'll be here anyway."

Which was true, Natasha thought, as soon as he dropped in on Sam.

After a pause, Bucky said in a low voice, "And I was doing so well."

"You're still doing well."

"Wilson wouldn't—"

"Wilson's your friend, and he's fine." She tilted her head up so she could stare back at his sceptical face. "He'd call you an ass for talking like this."

Very deliberately, Bucky put his beer on the coffee table and then put the nearly-empty basket of cheese curds there, too. Natasha didn't protest when he tightened his hold around her and shifted their arrangement so that she was lying on top of his chest, feet tangled. Careful not to spill, she finished the last few sips of her beer and put it on the table with his. Pressed her cheek to his sternum.

"It'll pass," she said. It always did.

"I know," he said.

After the animals, they watched detectives solve crimes and save people. Sometimes she felt his breath on the top of her head, his lips in her hair. Other times the dog swung her gargantuan paws at them for attention; for a little while, until she got too hot, Mission laid with them in a pile. Time blurred, and the only reason Natasha knew she and Bucky had fallen asleep was because Mission woke them up as she went running toward the door. She tamped her feet and sniffed aggressively under the door.

"Buck? It's me," came Steve's voice from outside the apartment.

The dog ran into the living room, whined at them, and then ran back to the door to stamp her feet some more. Natasha lifted her cheek and looked at Bucky. Arched an eyebrow.

Nodding, he said quietly, "Better."

"Come on in," Natasha called.

She laid her head back down and, just for a second, Bucky pressed his hand to the back of her head, holding her there. It didn't matter; Natasha didn't have any intention of leaving.

* * *

**Note: ****You can read more about Bucky's dog Mission in my story _Man with a Mission_.**


End file.
